The Lantern Festival
Yesterday was the Lantern Festival, the final day of the new year celebrations. To mark the end of the 15 day Spring Festival, children traditionally parade through the streets carrying red lanterns. I didn’t see any lantern parades and it seemed more like another excuse to go wild with the fireworks.
The Lantern Festival is also the final opportunity for a family get-together during Spring Festival and I was fortunate to be invited out to dinner with a local family.
A friend of mine, Anna, invited me to her brother’s apartment to celebrate the Lantern Festival with their family. Their apartment sits right on top of the Jialing River, directly across the city from where I live (my apartment looks out over the Yangtze). With fireworks banned in the city centre, the local government permits them along the water-front, so we had a birds-eye view of the festivities. We were quite literally right on top of the action.
Once again the Chinese went mad with the fireworks – it was again like being in a warzone. The sound was incredible, an absolute cacophony. Fireworks of all sizes were being launched left-right-and-centre and I was thankful to be up in the apartment looking out over it, rather than down in the thick of it.
I was a little concerned at the prospect of having to walk through the city to get home after dinner but I found that the city itself was almost peaceful in comparison to the waterfront. The topography of the city, being built on top of a hill overlooking the two rivers, meant that the noise was shut out by the tall buildings surrounding the city. Everyone seemed to be abiding by the firework restrictions in the city so it turned out being a very safe trip home.
I work with a number of Grown Up Aussies who live in serviced apartments across the river in a slightly more residential area. Apparently it was not so peaceful over there. Fireworks had been launched from the windows of the apartment building next door to their own, and later in the evening fire trucks were heard racing down the street. It turns out that the building had been set alight by a stray cracker. It was not a small fire and the building was gutted. Watching from next door the Grown Ups described quite a spectacle and were thankful in the end that the fire had been contained to just one building. Apparently on New Year’s Eve the Fire Department had been called out to control 191 fires in Chongqing city alone... that’s an awfully busy night. There were, however, no official reports of injuries. Yeh right.
Back to the dinner, and Anna told me that her sister-in-law used to be a professional volleyball player. She was quite tall so of course we compared heights – she is two centimetres taller than me. She had been a centre blocker and now works for one of the Government sporting departments at the new stadium being built in Chongqing - some of the early rounds of the Olympic soccer will be played there in 2008. Everyone was quite surprised to hear that one of my former coaches was a Chinese national player. They laughed when I told them how she used to berate us in broken English... “that not volleyball, that shopping!”
Once again everyone played “Guess how old the laowei is!” and results ranged from 18-24 (yay!). People in China are constantly telling me I look young and at first I thought they were being polite. I have since learned that Chinese people generally think foreigners look older than they are, and anyway, the Chinese don’t really do polite. They have no problem speaking their minds about such things and are not at all afraid to ask you how old you are or tell you that you’ve put on weight. I know from first-hand experience.
Once dinner was served Anna pointed at a particular meat dish and with a mischievous look in her eye asked whether I knew what it was. “I don’t know” I responded to which she replied “pigs ears” with a laugh. I pointed at the next dish asking what that was, again she laughed before answering “pig’s hearts”. The next dish? “Pig’s lungs”. The next? “Dofu (tofu). You can eat that one”. Uh, thanks. There was also some delicious baked fish and lots of vegetables including an apple-potato-tomato salad. It certainly contained more potato than the potato salad Reggie and I had ordered at a restaurant in Chongqing... not a potato in sight.
I also had to try baijiu for the first time. I had managed to avoid the god-awful stuff so far much to the annoyance of some of my other AYAD friends. Baijiu is the local spirit, the literal translation being “white wine”. Wine it certainly is not. At 53% proof it smells like rotten socks and tastes like rocket fuel. Chinese men drink it with gusto, by the shot, often ending up red-faced and giggling by the end of the evening. Anna’s husband and brother drank a bottle between them over dinner, and I managed to get away with just a sip rather than a whole shot of the stuff. They told me, numerous times, that they were drinking the best, most expensive brand available. It was in a nice ceramic bottle so it must have been more pricey than the stuff I’ve seen at the local supermarket – in a pop-top plastic bottle (sporty!) priced at 3 rmb (ie. about 50 cents) for 500ml.
It was a lovely evening, aside from the noise, and I felt very fortunate to have been invited to join a Chinese family for their celebration. The evening ended, as they often do in China, with the family gathered around the tv - the women chatting, the men smoking and the kids glued to the telly watching a variety show of some description.
The Lantern Festival is also the final opportunity for a family get-together during Spring Festival and I was fortunate to be invited out to dinner with a local family.
A friend of mine, Anna, invited me to her brother’s apartment to celebrate the Lantern Festival with their family. Their apartment sits right on top of the Jialing River, directly across the city from where I live (my apartment looks out over the Yangtze). With fireworks banned in the city centre, the local government permits them along the water-front, so we had a birds-eye view of the festivities. We were quite literally right on top of the action.
Once again the Chinese went mad with the fireworks – it was again like being in a warzone. The sound was incredible, an absolute cacophony. Fireworks of all sizes were being launched left-right-and-centre and I was thankful to be up in the apartment looking out over it, rather than down in the thick of it.
I was a little concerned at the prospect of having to walk through the city to get home after dinner but I found that the city itself was almost peaceful in comparison to the waterfront. The topography of the city, being built on top of a hill overlooking the two rivers, meant that the noise was shut out by the tall buildings surrounding the city. Everyone seemed to be abiding by the firework restrictions in the city so it turned out being a very safe trip home.
I work with a number of Grown Up Aussies who live in serviced apartments across the river in a slightly more residential area. Apparently it was not so peaceful over there. Fireworks had been launched from the windows of the apartment building next door to their own, and later in the evening fire trucks were heard racing down the street. It turns out that the building had been set alight by a stray cracker. It was not a small fire and the building was gutted. Watching from next door the Grown Ups described quite a spectacle and were thankful in the end that the fire had been contained to just one building. Apparently on New Year’s Eve the Fire Department had been called out to control 191 fires in Chongqing city alone... that’s an awfully busy night. There were, however, no official reports of injuries. Yeh right.
Back to the dinner, and Anna told me that her sister-in-law used to be a professional volleyball player. She was quite tall so of course we compared heights – she is two centimetres taller than me. She had been a centre blocker and now works for one of the Government sporting departments at the new stadium being built in Chongqing - some of the early rounds of the Olympic soccer will be played there in 2008. Everyone was quite surprised to hear that one of my former coaches was a Chinese national player. They laughed when I told them how she used to berate us in broken English... “that not volleyball, that shopping!”
Once again everyone played “Guess how old the laowei is!” and results ranged from 18-24 (yay!). People in China are constantly telling me I look young and at first I thought they were being polite. I have since learned that Chinese people generally think foreigners look older than they are, and anyway, the Chinese don’t really do polite. They have no problem speaking their minds about such things and are not at all afraid to ask you how old you are or tell you that you’ve put on weight. I know from first-hand experience.
Once dinner was served Anna pointed at a particular meat dish and with a mischievous look in her eye asked whether I knew what it was. “I don’t know” I responded to which she replied “pigs ears” with a laugh. I pointed at the next dish asking what that was, again she laughed before answering “pig’s hearts”. The next dish? “Pig’s lungs”. The next? “Dofu (tofu). You can eat that one”. Uh, thanks. There was also some delicious baked fish and lots of vegetables including an apple-potato-tomato salad. It certainly contained more potato than the potato salad Reggie and I had ordered at a restaurant in Chongqing... not a potato in sight.
I also had to try baijiu for the first time. I had managed to avoid the god-awful stuff so far much to the annoyance of some of my other AYAD friends. Baijiu is the local spirit, the literal translation being “white wine”. Wine it certainly is not. At 53% proof it smells like rotten socks and tastes like rocket fuel. Chinese men drink it with gusto, by the shot, often ending up red-faced and giggling by the end of the evening. Anna’s husband and brother drank a bottle between them over dinner, and I managed to get away with just a sip rather than a whole shot of the stuff. They told me, numerous times, that they were drinking the best, most expensive brand available. It was in a nice ceramic bottle so it must have been more pricey than the stuff I’ve seen at the local supermarket – in a pop-top plastic bottle (sporty!) priced at 3 rmb (ie. about 50 cents) for 500ml.
It was a lovely evening, aside from the noise, and I felt very fortunate to have been invited to join a Chinese family for their celebration. The evening ended, as they often do in China, with the family gathered around the tv - the women chatting, the men smoking and the kids glued to the telly watching a variety show of some description.
posted by bvc @ 7:54 PM
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